The entire exchange between Peter Doocy and President Joe Biden is an eye-opening event if ever there was one, and it really highlights exactly what the media is supposed to be.
To catch you up, Biden called Doocey a “son of a b**ch” after Doocy asked Biden about the inflation problem at a press conference meant to discuss the inflation problem.
“Do you think inflation is a political liability ahead of the midterms?” asked Doocy.
“No, it’s a great asset,” Biden said sarcastically into a microphone. “More inflation. What a stupid son of a bitch.”
Some consider it an odd moment, and to be sure, it’s not necessarily common for presidents to outwardly curse at reporters. Most of the time that happens internally.
(READ: There Is More Going on With Joe Biden’s ‘SOB’ Comment—and It Doesn’t Involve Fox News)
The thing that’s bothersome isn’t Biden’s reaction in my opinion. The purpose of the press, especially in matters of politics, is to be the people. Their entire job is to ask questions in order to get important answers that give us an idea of how things are going, what the plan is for any given situation, and what future plans our leaders are making.
Sometimes these questions are highly inconvenient to the politician, and that’s actually a good thing. They should be held accountable and if something goes wrong, they need to answer to us for it. They are elected leaders, and the press’s job is to represent us in asking these questions.
Funny enough, Doocy’s question was likely something Democrat voters were wondering about, and given all the failures of the Biden administration, wondering if the inflation was going to have a serious impact on the Democrat’s upcoming midterm campaigns, many people would like to know.
Expressions of frustration aren’t a good look, especially for the leader of the free world, but it’s hardly unexpected. If I were in Biden’s position and asked highly inconvenient questions, I’d probably make some sort of expression as well, given I would probably keep the cursing to a minimum.
Trump used to smack around reporters verbally all the time, and it was oftentimes deserved.
But Democrats should really pay attention to Doocy’s example, and I don’t just mean in terms of this interaction. Doocy is consistently asking questions that the people are asking, not activists, not K Street, etc. He’s being the voice of the people, and the people have questions that need to be answered, and some of those people exist so far out of the beltway. They want to know things too, and so Doocy asks for them.
A perfect example would be the question he asked of Jen Psaki concerning COVID-19 mandates not applying to illegal migrants.
“Why is it that you’re trying to require anybody with a job or anybody who goes to school to get the COVID-19 vaccine, but you’re not requiring that of migrants that continue walking across the southern border into the country?”
Before Doocy asked that question, I’d seen it posed many times both in my personal interactions with people and on social media. Doocy took the question we’d like to ask and asked it himself. To be sure, Psaki didn’t really have an answer.
Biden was also supposed to be the guy who knew how to get things done in Washington and had so much experience that he could right the ship easily.
He also consistently talked about being an uniter, yet the guy continues to use abusive language toward conservatives and Republican voters. You’ve likely had the conversation about this yourself and wanted to know where all that kumbaya talk had gone since Biden actually achieved power.
Doocy simply asked the questions that were on people’s minds.
Doocy: "As you talk about a yr ago & working w/Republicans, now he's talking about [those] that don't agree w/voting rights…as George Wallace, Bull Connor & Jefferson Davis. What happened to the guy who…said to make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy?" pic.twitter.com/YbmUGI2cZm
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 14, 2022
The questions Doocy is asking are inconvenient but this is a Republic where the people in power are only in power because the people said they could be. They have to answer to us at the end of the day, and we need reporters willing to ask our questions, not some special interest groups or even questions scripted by the Democrats themselves.
I’m not saying these questions asked on behalf of the people should be time-wasting, ultra-biased questions, but there are many legitimate queries that need to be answered. Doocy is clearly providing that avenue and he should be respected for it.
